How Much Money Blizzard is Really Making from 10 Million Subscribers

[DarkSign]

How Much Money Blizzard is Really Making from 10 Million Subscribers

lifted from some gaming site

OK, now let's do some simple calculi: if all those 10 million subscribers were to pay the regular $14.99 month-to-month fee, then Blizzard would fill its pockets with almost $150 million every single month ($149 million to be exact, but of course there are people who pay for 3 or 6 months in advance). For the company that also brought us StarCraft and Diablo that means a revenue-target of more than $1.7 billion ($1,798,900,000) for FY 2008, if (and that's a BIG "if"...) they manage to keep ONLY 10 million subscribers for the 11 months left.

But with China's online gaming population going towards 58 million by the end of 2008, with constant new-comers flooding servers worldwide, with a new expansion pack looming and with a plethora of mods (yeah, World of Porncraft included...) available, it somehow natural to think profits will go up even further in Azeroth, and we are not mentioning the up-coming launch of StarCraft 2...

Now, we all know that according to Blizzard these money are used for server maintenance, support, and ongoing content creation. We also know how most of the time servers are down, especially when new expansion-packs rush in (remember The Burning Crusade fiesta?...). After some googling on the Internet we've also discovered that the most expensive data center to date is the one Microsoft tries to built somewhere in Texas, which is to cost around $600 million (and yes, it's going to be gigantic, much larger than anything Blizzard has at the moment...). So building and maintaining server centers shouldn't surpass $100 million/year, and that's a worst case scenario...

There's more in the article. Interesting read, no?

[stray]

People in China and Korea (the bulk of those subscribers) aren't paying shit. Last I heard at least.

On a sidenote, that MS datacenter is being built in my hometown... I should get a job there methinks. The breakroom is like the foodcourt of an old shopping mall.

[SnakeCharmer]

Interesting read, no?

No.

Newsflash:  Blizzard/Vivendi makes a shitpile of cash, probably more than anyone else in the MMO industry.  Film at 11.

[Slyfeind]

remember The Burning Crusade fiesta?

Do I ever! That was hot hot HOT!

[UnSub]

According to the info put out during the Activision / Vivendi merger, WoW has an annual revenue of $1.1 billion dollars and an operating profit of $520 million.

A separate data source indicates that Chinese players pay 6c an hour to play WoW.

I can't be bothered finding links right now. Regardless: WoW is the most profitable game ever.

[Fordel]

520 million profit, as in pure money hat profits?


damn. 

[Aez]

With that kind of money, I wonder why WoW doesn't have every features ever developed in a mmo : naval battle, mounted combat, HUGE siege system, 12 more class, 10x time more complex economy.  It would cost them what, 30 millions more? 60 millions?  I'd be playing with all this. They have the mean to REALLY be the final game.  That's it.  Game over.

But the next expansion has what, one new class and more raid???

[Triforcer]

Why mess with success?  Throwing in 18 more huge things could send you into a deathspiral just as easily as it increases your share.  WoW is aging, remember- a few screwups and people will head to the Next Big Thing. 

[Trippy]

There's more in the article. Interesting read, no?

No it's not. They didn't do even the most basic research.

[Righ]

These money would buy a idiot on an gaming site a educations.

[SnakeCharmer]

Why mess with success?  Throwing in 18 more huge things could send you into a deathspiral just as easily as it increases your share.  WoW is aging, remember- a few screwups and people will head to the Next Big Thing. 

Which is what, exactly?

I can't see anything in the next couple of years as being the Next Big Thing.

Age of Conan? 
Nah.  See TSW.

The Secret World? 
Newp.  Looks cool, but niche-y (nichy?).  And given the current moneysink that is Age of Conan and FunComs slowly declining stock value, I'll be very surprised if this ever sees the light of day.

Stargate Worlds? 
No.  Nichy, sci fi.

The Agency? 
Nyet.  Is it really an MMO?

38 Studios Unnamed MMO that won't be out for 3+ years?
Possibly.  By then, maybe, just because WoW will be 6 or 7 years old.

WAR?
Doubtful.  Why play a cheap imitation when you can play the real thing (WoW)?

Lum's STILL secret MMO?
Who knows?  There's not even a smidgeon of info about what it is or what it's about.

Spacetime Studios Blackstar?
No.  It just got cancelled by NCSoft, killing my inner fanboi hopes and turning me into disgusted MMO cynic.  IF it sees the light of day, it has all the indications of being EvE with ground combat.

PotBS?
No.  Nichy.  Decent launch, EvE with ships. 

Only Next Big Thing I can think of is Blizzards next MMO.   All that will happen is all those millions of WoW subscribers will become Blizzards next MMO subscribers.  Money still goes into the same place.  Bonus points if Blizzard offers some sort of Station pass copy.

The next couple of years have great potential to be really really shitty for MMOs.
I'd love for someone to try and convince me otherwise.

[Triforcer]

I still think War has a shot.  Not to overtake WoW, but I can see a world where War has 2 or 3 mil and WoW plateaus/loses a couple million. 

[schild]

World of Warcraft is to videogames in the same way Titanic is to movies.

Shallow, filthy, polished crap for mouthbreathers that made an absolute shit ton of cash.

[stray]

Hey, Billy Zane was damn good in Titanic.

[schild]

Hey, Billy Zane was damn good in Titanic.

And supposedly Battlegrounds are good in WoW, but I'm not gonna waste my life getting to them and being able to compete.

[Righ]

RMT to the rescue. It would probably cost you less than all your exploding 360s.

[Fordel]

Who told you that vicious lie? (Battle grounds are good).

[schild]

RMT to the rescue. It would probably cost you less than all your exploding 360s.

I see what you did there.

When I have to pay to replace one of my 360s, I'll start playing WoW again.

I'll pick up right where I left off. With a level 70 pally.

[Margalis]

I agree with Triforcer. Adding every new feature under the sun could be counter-productive.

In engineering as staff size increases efficiency decreases. They could probably double the staff and only see a net 20-30% increase in productivity, along with more bugs. Adding a whole bunch of new features that take more engineering isn't a good idea.

They could add a lot more content though, that sort of thing tends to scale better.

[stu]

I'll pick up right where I left off. With a level 70 pally.

I thought you sold it. (?)

[schild]

I'll pick up right where I left off. With a level 70 pally.

I thought you sold it. (?)

Nope, still in the pile. Burning Crusade is still sealed. Protip: I never had a level 70 pally.

[stu]

Either way, Battlegrounds are fun! You should change your moniker from Mr. Fahrenheit to Mr. Curmudgeon.

[schild]

If I come back to WoW, I'll name my toon Curmudgeon just for you.

But before I do that, I've got to go find a third/fourth run 99cent theater to see Titanic again, just so I can put another dollar into THAT bucket.

[Xerapis]

People in Korea pay more than you do, actually.

[Ratman_tf]

With that kind of money, I wonder why WoW doesn't have every features ever developed in a mmo : naval battle, mounted combat, HUGE siege system, 12 more class, 10x time more complex economy.  It would cost them what, 30 millions more? 60 millions?  I'd be playing with all this. They have the mean to REALLY be the final game.  That's it.  Game over.

But the next expansion has what, one new class and more raid???

Because Blizzard apparently are smart enough to realize that you can't solve problems just by throwing money at them.

It would be so tempting, like devil at the crossroads tempting, to kitchen sink WoW. But the creeping features would bloat it and sink one of the very things that makes it so successful. It's simplicity and ease of play.

IMHO anywho.

*Edit*

Jesus, Schild. You crusty old fuck.

*Edit for great justice*

So do we have any fucking clue how much Blizzard takes from the asian market? I've heard they pay less, they pay more, they pay in chickens... are there even any questionable numbers to point at?

[tasmia]

[Dash]

WoW had a huge budget, good business model, good game philosophy, plenty of dev power and all the time they required.  Not sure who out there will match that let alone have the Blizzard name and market presence and catch lightning in a bottle like WoW was able to do. 

So yeah they make a shitload of cash. 

[Trippy]

They did not have all the time they required.

[Dash]

Meaning what, it was rushed out the door?

[Surlyboi]

And the newb opens with a chart.

Bra. Vo.

That said, Titanic was better than WoW. At least that had Kate Winslet's hooters out for display.

[CharlieMopps]

I used to work at AT&T. At EQ1's peak (right before Luclin came out) I looked up Sony Online Entertainment, and their bill was about $60k/month for their data lines. A bunch of Hicap Flex lines. They would get burst charges when a patch came out. So I don't think bandwidth is a signifigant cost to an mmo.

[Dash]

It's gotta be hundreds of thousands in bandwidth per month at least for 10 mil users.  I think just 1 OC48 is a couple hundred thousand  a month.  We have major clients with 4 OC12's split among 2 datacenters for redundancy, they probably run 50k a month each or so.

Anyone know what Bliz or any major MMO uses for bandwidth?




 

[tmp]

That said, Titanic was better than WoW. At least that had Kate Winslet's hooters out for display.

But WoW has low resolution elf tits in full 3d. 

as for spending the income on WoW development: why bother when they're working on next MMOs to take over.

[rk47]

It's gotta be hundreds of thousands in bandwidth per month at least for 10 mil users.  I think just 1 OC48 is a couple hundred thousand  a month.  We have major clients with 4 OC12's split among 2 datacenters for redundancy, they probably run 50k a month each or so.

Anyone know what Bliz or any major MMO uses for bandwidth?

Bit Torrent for patch still makes me mad .

[Trippy]

Meaning what, it was rushed out the door?

Yup, it had to be released in time for the Holiday shopping season of 2004. From the Open Beta you could tell they were rushing to add things in at the very last minute like the Hunter talents and they didn't bother to fix a number of major bugs.